The striking mechanism of musical watches is generally formed by a vibration plate and a system of actuating the vibration plate strips. The actuation system may be a rotating cylinder, as in most music boxes, or a rotating disc.
This latter solution, with a rotating disc disposed in the plane of the watch, is particularly advantageously because of its limited overall height, but it greatly limits the actuation energy of the strips producing the lowest notes. The melody is consequently not very audible.
Through pins are arranged on the striking disc so as to quickly lift and release each strip of the vibration plate. Two criteria are generally followed for the sizing of the disc-vibration plate system.                all the strips have the same lifting travel, regardless of their length;        the strips are released abruptly to avoid overdamping the bending and the occurrence of noise.        
Despite the antiquity of musical timepieces, no guidance exists in the state of the art as regards:                adaptation of the position of the vibration plate strips relative to the striking disc;        the width of the strips and of the actuation pins;        the height of the vibration plate strips;        the height of the actuation pins:        any adaptation between the shape of the inclined plane for lifting the strip by contact with the pin, the shape of the pins and the direction of movement of the pins (which, in a rotating disc, describe a circular orbit).        
Consequently, the consumption of torque and thus the mechanical energy of the striking mechanism is generally not optimised:                the take-up of torque is very different for the actuation of high and low notes and may be excessive for actuation of the shortest vibration plate strips, corresponding to the highest pitched notes;        a significant part of the energy may be consumed by producing an improper deformation of the vibration plate strips, particularly a deformation having a torsion or bending contribution in the plane of the watch: as these deformations are overdamped and have an incorrect frequency contribution (dissonance), they result in a net loss of acoustic performance.        
Since the loss of energy is proportional to the force and to the torque applied according to the degrees of freedom of these incorrect deformations, and since it depends on the result of multiplication of the spatial deformation generated and the mechanical stress created in the material, this loss of energy may be very significant even if the strips are made rigid so as to greatly reduce improper spatial deformations, since the mechanical stresses then increase.
US Patent Application No 2876670A in the name of DUNCAN discloses a music box disc-vibration plate assembly with strips of constant thickness and of unequal length and width, all within the projection of the disc onto the median plane of the vibration plate plate, which includes, in the solid part thereof on the side of the attachment of the strips, grooves forming resonant cavities.
CH Patent Application No 704670A in the name of BREGUET discloses a disc-vibration plate assembly for a music box with strips all within the projection of the disc onto the median plane of the vibration plate plate, and wherein the height of the control pins of the disc is adapted according to the torque to be transmitted.
CH Patent Application No 405896A in the name of FERNAND discloses a music box vibration plate partially encapsulated in a coating determining the free length of the various strips of which it is formed.
WO Patent Application No 2004/090863 A2 in the name of SEGAN LTD discloses an electronic music generating device, with a memory, magnetic sound generator and a vibration plate.